


Warplane

by C130



Category: Cars (Movies), Planes (Movies)
Genre: A whole lot of fancy flying, C-119s, C-130, Cargo planes, F/M, Gen, Gunships, Historical, Korean War, Vietnam War
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-01-24
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2018-09-19 17:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,236
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9452282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/C130/pseuds/C130
Summary: "You know you can't hide from them forever right." Maru would quietly rib him. Cabbie would just harumph in reply. He had done a very good job not letting his past take over his present. There was no way that he was going to let a bunch of reporters dig up his ghosts now. But it was only a matter of time before Cabbie would be forced to tell his war stories.





	1. When Memories Come To Roost

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, welcome to my second chaptered Fanfiction story! There are some references made to my first story 'That Others Might Live,' but it isn't critical to read that story first. We have an exciting adventure ahead of us but before we get there I have a few items of business. First, this story has been betaed by Thelaterose99 and any mistakes that are left are mine and mine alone. Feel free to let me know what I have missed and I will work on getting stuff fixed. Second, this story is cross-posted with fanfiction.net. And last, I do not happen to own Planes. I am just borrowing them for this adventure.
> 
> Well now that has been taken care of, make sure your luggage is securely in place under your seat, your tray table is stowed, and your seat is in it's fully upright position, because it is time for this story to take flight.

It was all the Dodge photo’s fault. If the photo of the smokejumpers sheltering under his wings while during the Great Piston Peak Fire hadn’t got viral, Cabbie wouldn’t have had to deal with this mess. But the photo had been taken, and the reporters had done their job, and now questions about Cabbie’s entire firefighting and military career were boiling to the surface. Most were questions that people were asking were ones that the C-119 had been avoiding answering for the three decades.

Cabbie knew he wasn’t the only plane that the media was currently hounding. The Chief and Dusty had been haunted mercilessly by the tabloids, but both of them had at least given a few interviews to the media. Blade Ranger had even been called to testify in front of Congress. The vultures were still circling those two, but they had started to back off when the realized that neither the helitanker nor the SEAT was going to give them a juicy sound bite.

Unfortunately, as the tabloids had lost interest in the former movie star and the racer, they instead turn their attention on digging up dirt on one Col. Cabbie McHale, USA, Retired. Apparently, someone got the brilliant idea cold calling the 60 or so C-119’s left. The ground ghosts, thank goodness, either kept their mouths shut or chewed the reporters a good one. Hope and Truck up in Alaska had polite and given a few nonsense answers before hanging up on them.  Lift had insisted about talking about Cabbies Hollywood career (which involved a total of three movies that Lift had dragged him into being an extra for when he was visiting).

Everything probably would have been fine if Carl, the sniveling twit of a cargo hauler, had given an interview. Carl, the Flying Boxcar who had never had to fight anything in his life, had given a rambling speech about how C-119’s were never meant to fight fires and how Piston Peak’s jump plane clearly had a martyr complex that would sooner or later get a whole bunch of vehicles killed. Next, think he knew news agencies from around the United States were trying to subpoena his repair records.

“You know you can’t hide from them forever right.” Maru would sometimes quietly rib him.

Cabbie just harrumphed in reply. He had done a very good job of not letting his past take over his present. There was no way that he was going to let a bunch of reporters dig up his ghosts now.

* * *

 

“This is not healthy for anyone.” Old Jammer admitted when one of the groomers brought up the subject of Cabbie at the monthly Piston Peak National Park meeting. “That said, there isn’t a whole lot we can do about it. It is McHale’s story to tell.”

“It becomes a matter for the rest of the park when reports start parking places they are not supposed to.” The grouchy Jeep in charge of park security countered. “Fire lanes exist for a reason. Also, I am sick and tired of being woken up in the middle of the night because someone has broken into HR again.”

“You would think that they would have realized that the Air Attack staffs stuff is up at the airstrip after the first three attempts.” Someone in the room muttered under their breaths leading the room to dissolve into laughter.

“Well, there may be one way to force the interview.” The bright-eyed Chevy from account suggested once ever had caught their breath again. “We have the historian from one of his old units talk to him about his military past, then we step in and have one of the Park Service muckitymucks have him discuss his fire career. That way the story is recorded, the people who need access can request it either from the Department of Defense or the Department of the Interior, and people can stop hounding our employee.”

“And how are we going to funnel them through ‘proper sources’?” Blade Ranger played devil’s advocate. “It is not like we have been particularly successful at doing that so far.”

“We use the excuse that some of Cabbie’s work was classified and that the old plane takes the oath him made to the Air Force as a young plane very seriously. He didn’t want to speak about his past because he was worried he might accidently harm the country he as sworn to protect in peace and in war.”

“It might work.” Blade Ranger admitted quietly. “So who is going to be informing him about this development?”

* * *

 

“And do I at least get a chance to argue against this plan?”

Blade stared up at pissed 40-ton warplane glaring down at him, and the Air Attack Chief was pretty sure that he was going to have to find an excuse to sic certain members of the Smokejumper team on the various other departments in the park. 

“No.”

Cabbie continued to glare and for a few long moments Blade was worried that he was about to get squashed. Then the C-119 glanced away.

“Fine. But here are the rules. One, if it is classified, I ain’t going to be talk about it. Period. Two, if there is someone in the room that I don’t want to hear part or the entire story; I reserve the right to stop talking until they clear their butts out of there. Three, no Smokejumper may be in the park whenever I am telling the story. Avalanche as been able to piece together enough war facts from Wikipedia and those war documentaries he is so fond of to give Drip and Pinecone nightmares. The kids’ job is hard enough without them carrying some of my baggage as well.”

“I think we can work with that.” Blade chewed on his lip.

“You better, because otherwise, you’re going to have to find yourself a new jump plane.”


	2. A Young Plane Goes To War

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabbie begins his tale a the dawn of the Korean War, explaining how he was given his roll as squadron navigator.

 

It would take just over three months to set up the formal interviews, and a thick blanket of snow now covered Piston Peak. Still to say that Cabbie was less than pleased with his current situation, would comparable with calling a hurricane a kind of thunderstorm. While technically correct, it failed to capture the sheer magnitude of ill will that Cabbie felt towards the various vehicles in the room…and there were a lot of them.

Some of them he had expected. There was, of course, the two token military personal, a beefy forklift who was completely dwarfed by the Oshkosh M1070 HETS (Heavy Equipment Transport System) who was sent with him. The only surprise was the both vehicles were wearing the Sword and parachute symbol of his old unit the 314th Air Transport Wing. Then there were the lookieloos from the park. Maru, Cabbie had expected. The mechanic had been hounding him for years to shed some insight on the various sections of his medical record that were blacked out with marker. Blade was there under the guise of moral support, but Cabbie knew that the chief could be just as bad as Maru when his curiosity was peeked.

Then there were others he hadn’t expected. Windlifter had shown up even though he usually overwintered with his family in Oregon. A few members from the park’s legal team showed up, probably to figure out just how much of a liability having the C119 around was. And then there was the accounting team…the entire accounting team, who appeared to have taken over the entire back half of the Incident Command Center (a new addition to the park post fire) and turned it into a makeshift office so that they could complete payroll while listening in.

Chrysler, Cabbie thought to himself, what a mess.

There were, of course, formal introductions, then Maru had tried to lighten the mood a bit by making a few sarcastic comments. When the small talk and casual laughter had died down everyone had turned their attention their full attention on the big plane. Never in Cabbie’s life had he had such a desire to hide from the world. Not when he was being shot at, not when he had lost the love of his life, not even when he had said goodbye to the fellow C-119’s in his unit in Vietnam knowing that his rank prevented him from joining his fellows on their suicide mission. Even though Cabbie desperately wanted to run, he instead cleared his throat, closed his eyes and started to tell a story that he had avoided sharing for at least 50 years.

“I am originally from Hagerstown, Maryland. Not that that means much now. As soon as I was old enough, I enlisted in the US Air Force and entered basic training on June 5th, and was assigned to the 314th Troop Transport Unit based at Stewart AFB, Tennessee mid-July. I had barely been on base for two weeks when every C-119 on base was called upon for a temporary duty assignment in East Asia. At the time there was no way of knowing that temporary duty assignment would last for the next four years…”

* * *

 

“What do you mean we are flying to Hawaii?” Short practically squawked at their orders.

“Butter bar.” The Douglas C-47, known as a Gooney Bird though no C-119 would be stupid enough to call that to his face, in command purred dangerously at the flight. “Do I need to kick the lot of you back to basic?”

“No, Sir.” The entire flight barked back in unison, their eyes forward, their wings held rigidly at attention.

“Then stop arguing with orders.”

“Yes, Sir!” Every aircraft stayed ridged with the exception of one plane who gentle spun his right propeller as a request to ask a question.

“2nd Lt…” The C-47 leaned over to read were Cabbie’s name was scrawled across his nose. “McHale.”

“Permission to ask a question, Sir!”

“This better be good Lt.” The Captain was practically nose to nose with the young cargo aircraft, and at that moment it didn’t matter that the C-47 was a good ten feet shorter than a C-119.

Cabbie swallowed hard, trying to keep his voice level. “How are we going to fly to Hawaii, Sir? According to the range calculation that we have been required to complete Hawaii is located over 300 miles beyond the range of a typical C119 and there are very limited options for refueling between Hawaii and mainland, Sir.”

“Add you think you understand ferrying, butter bar?” 

“No, Sir. I assume I am stupid, Sir.” Cabbie kept his eyes forward and really started wishing that he had just kept his mouth shut. “Which is why I needed to ask the question, Sir.”

The look that the C-47 gave Cabbie was a cross between amusement and absolutely predatory. “Well, boys it looks like your squadron has a navigator. As of this moment McHale, you are released from patrol duties. You will report to the Air Ops at 0700 hours tomorrow morning.”

Cabbie acknowledged the order with a feeling of dread.

* * *

 

Even though the entire squadron had been put through their night flying paces and had not rested their tires on the tarmac until after 0230, Cabbie was still too wired to grab a wink of sleep. It wasn’t like he was the first plane from the squadron to be pulled out of the formation for a special duty assignment. Four aircraft had been pulled from their ranks for additional command training to become the leaders of each flight, but being pulled for that duty had been an honor. Cabbie had been called out of the carpet for pointing an apparent flaw in a commanding officer’s plan. While he had gone about it a much more diplomatic way than Short, the fact that the training officer had pulled him from the flight line did not bode well.

The young plane was so lost in thought that he didn’t’ hear the trill of First Call. Cabbie probably would have spaced out through Reveille if it wasn’t for the fact that Short had accidently wacked him a wing as the plane oriented his nose towards the rising flag. Snapping back to reality, Cabbie also pointed his nose towards the flag, while praying that no officers had noticed his slow reaction time. He had already been chewed out once in the last 24 hours. He was not keen on getting a second tongue lashing right now.

If he was noticed, the command staff didn’t mention it. Instead, he was allowed to detangle himself from the huddle of aircraft on the tarmac and make his way to the navigation hanger. The thunder of airplane engines echoing across base as the youth C-119s prepared for their morning flight around the flag pole did nothing to lessen Cabbie's nerves as he approached the open door. Not knowing exactly what to do, Cabbie rapped the side of the hanger with his wing and waited for a response.

“Enter!”

Cabbie rolled into the hanger and then snapped to his smartest attention.“2nd Lt. McHale, reporting for duty as ordered, Sir!”

“Kid relax before you break something.” The voice was clearly unimpressed by the C-119’s formality. 

“Yes, Sir.” Cabbie shifted his weight a little but was still clearly holding his wings at attention as he looked down at the tug that had addressed him.

“Listen, Kid, I ain’t a Sir, I’m a Chief.”  

“Yes, Chief.” Cabbie replied earning him an exasperated sigh from the sergeant.

“Kid, while I know all of those training officers keep on insisting that you do everything prim and proper when you are out on the tarmac and flying formation, but this hanger ain’t either of those places.” The tug with sergeant’s strips waved his tines in the direction of the collection of aircraft and ground vehicles who were pouring over maps and discussing options. “If you spot an error in someone’s math you point it out. If you think we have overlooked something speak up.”

“You trust me to critic other people’s work?” Cabbie was startled enough to break out of attention.

“Pretty much.” The tug lips split into a grin. “Let’s give you the penny tour.”

By the time the Cabbie had been given a thorough tour of the navigation section, Mess Call had come and passed. In fact, it was nearly time for the bugle call to Assembly. While the young plane really enjoyed learning, he had spent the whole night before flying, and after missing breakfast, his tanks were starting to feel uncomfortably empty. Cabbie was debating whether or not he should speak up when the tug gave a bit of a harrumphing sound.

“Your tanks are running on empty aren’t they?”

“No, Sir…I mean Chief.” Cabbie stuttered. The tug gave him a look but thankfully didn’t chew him out for his error.

“Let’s get that fixed.”

Next thing Cabbie knew he was getting lead to the back door of the kitchen, where the tug ordered a tank of fuel and some low-grade oil to go. At first, it looked like the kitchen staff was going to argue, but after looking at the sergeant’s strips then up at Cabbie’s massive wingspan, he got the drum of fuel ready. The tug gave Cabbie a good quarter tank of fuel immediately, but decided to give Cabbie the rest when they got back to the navigation hanger. By the time his tanks were finally full Assembly had already been called and Cabbie was trying not to show his nervousness.

“Don’t worry Kid.” The tug chuckled as he handed Cabbie a second can of oil. “They higher-ups know exactly where you are so you aren’t going to get yelled at for missing muster.”

That caused Cabbie to nod quietly, but the young plane still couldn’t keep a whole list of questions from bubbling up in his head. After a few painfully long moments the C-119 mustered up enough courage to try to get them answered.

“Can I ask a question, Chief?” Cabbie asked as he thoughtfully sipped from a can of low grade. Sandy just looked up from the maps they were annotating with a slight roll of his eyes which Cabbie interpreted as, the tug getting frustrated with the C-119’s formality again, so Cabbie decided to spit out what was bothering him. “Why am I here?”

The sergeant gave a great barking laugh. “You are here because you made a good impression on Captain Thunder and while I may disagree with the Skytrain on many things, I do have to admit that he has a skill at figuring out what recruits are going to excel at. And if the fates and the gremlins allow it, you have the brains to do well in this job.”

* * *

 

It turned out that the Chief Master Sergeant’s name was Sandy Uphill and he had been assigned to be Cabbie’s personal crew chief which kind of made the young plane a bit nervous especially when he found out that the Sandy use to be Captain Thunder’s crew chief back in the Second World War. After the first two days working with the Chief, Cabbie realized there was no reason to be nervous. The Chief was a solid tug, who figuratively took his young charge under his wing and taught him aspects of military culture that basic had conveniently left out.

Under his careful tutorage, Cabbie learned why planes, like ships, were always officers. It apparently was due to a combination of the fact they carried other people’s lives in the hulls and the fact they were expected to make the ultimate sacrifice to save the lives they carried if fired upon. The tradition had been firmly cemented into military culture during the first part of WWII when some of the bomber squadrons were suffering 100% mortality of their aircraft over a 30 mission period, and the fighter planes were not doing much better.

By day three, the two vehicles had hit a rhythm. The mornings were spent memorizing the various charts and maps that Cabbie was going to need in order to lead his team across the Ocean, and then in the afternoons the Chief would tell the young C-119 stories as he modified Cabbie’s communication systems to allow him to listen to the singing of the navigational beacons around him. Cabbie would then join the rest of his squadron after dinner for their evening flight and then would bunk down with them for the night.

As the deadline to fly across the Pacific Ocean quickly approached, Cabbie was soon joined by Updraft the aircraft selected to be the navigator for squadron two. The two planes hit it off well and were quickly checking each other math, much to Sandy’s and Fife’s (Updraft’s crew chief) amusement. Still, as the two aircraft got better at their navigational duties, Cabbie and Updraft became more and more worried about their upcoming flight.

“Sandy, no matter how we do the math, things are not adding up.” Cabbie finally brought up the two planes’ concern.

“That’s because you don’t have the last piece of the equation yet.” The Chief gave a toothy grin. “Tonight we are going to switch you to purple fuel.”

* * *

 

“So what is purple fuel?” A SUV with Ranger markings interrupted.

“It is a class of AvGas.” One of the tugs who worked the fuel tanks answered. “It refers either a 82UL mix which is basically car gasoline without all the automobile additives and really isn’t made anymore. Or it refers to 115/145 mix sometimes which is the highest grade of AvGas on the market. Given what they were asking you to do I have a feeling the purple you were referring to was the 115.”

“They had you flying on racing fuel?” Windlifter gave a low whistle.

Cabbie couldn’t help but chuckle at the normally composed helicopter’s reaction. “It wasn’t used for racing back then. 115/145 was originally designed us big military bomber and cargo planes, and it is not like I have stopped using it. Maru keeps a couple of tanks worth of barrels squirreled away for days when the density altitude is particularly off or if I need extra legs. If our budget hadn’t have been slashed as badly as it had, I would probably be flying on it all of the time.”

“Wouldn’t that be a bit excessive?” It was one of the accountants who spoke up.

“Not really.” Maru interjected. “Cabbie’s got ridiculously large piston engines on him, and those engines are hungry little suckers. While he can get away with using 100LL, you know the standard blue AvGas that the park buys in bulk, in the short term it lowers his overall performance and in the long term leads to a lot of engine work that would have otherwise been unnecessary, as well as, premature engine failure and death.”  

That could have been worded a bit less bluntly, Cabbie thought to himself, but everything that Maru said was completely true, so the warplane didn’t speak up. Not that it stopped everyone else from voicing their opinions. By the buzz that was starting to build in the room, it appeared the Cabbie had accidently poked a hornet’s nest. As much as the big plane really didn’t like Cad’s mismanagement of funds, he really didn’t want to get into an argument with accounting about his fuel consumption needs/preferences. Like any aircraft whose engines were tuned so something other than the typical 100LL or Jet-A, taking about your dietary requirements in front of other vehicles was kind of awkward. Luckily the Chief seemed to recognize the jump plane’s growing discomfort. 

“As fascinating as I find this whole discussion,” Blade interjected with a mildly exasperated huff, “why don’t we get back to the story?”

There was a chorus of agreements and with relief Cabbie tried to remember where he had left off the story. After a few moments, he began again. “There are few things quite as frightening as flying across an ocean for your first time, especially in that day and age when trans-pacific flights were so new. As my squadron’s navigator, I was under even more pressure because if I messed up everyone would run out of fuel over the ocean and die…”

* * *

 

The higher octane fuel that the military had switched all of the C-119’s to really did give them incredible legs, but every way Cabbie calculated the journey they were still going to fall short on the Hawaii leg. Still, at the moment Cabbie had something a little more immediate to worry about.

“I am still not exactly sure why the blindfold is necessary.” The young plane muttered as Sandy worked with several other crew chiefs to apply a thick, opaque film across his eyes. While it didn’t prevent him from reading his instruments, it left him completely unable to see the outside world.

“Would you prefer that you took your final navigation test over the ocean?” Sandy asked giving him a friendly slap on the noise with his tines.

“Not really.” The C-119 admitted. “But that still doesn’t explain to me why the test exists at all.”

There was a long pause and during which Cabbie was kind of expecting that Sandy was winding up for a proper rant. Turns out, it was something worse.

“McHale, you are a warplane.” Captain Thunder, his unit’s trainer, had somehow snuck up on him. “As your units navigator, you will be asked to fly your squadron through situations so dire that you have yet to imagine them. There will be many times when there will be no landmarks to guide you to safety. Whether it is because you are blinded by weather, smoke, or damaged, or flying over a landmark free stretch of desert or ocean, your job is the same. You will listen to the singing of the navigational beacons around you and will get your fellow planes safely home.”

“What if I fail?” The young plane finally laid all of his doubts bare.

“Then we will cross that bridge when we get there.” Sandy said resting a tine on Cabbie’s skin. “That said, I don’t expect you to fail. I have helped train hundreds of navigator’s in my time, and I know when I get a good one.”

“And it is not like you will be flying alone.” One of the other flight chiefs spoke up. “Your crew chief will be there to walk you through every step of the test.”

“And, you will have a military navigator on your wing until you get to the sea.” One of the C-47’s chimed in.

“So, Kid, are you ready to take on the unknown?” Sandy asked as they pushed the ladders away from his nose.

“I guess I will not know until I try.” Cabbie shrugged has he started to warm up his engines.

* * *

 

There was something incredibly unnerving about flying blind. It didn’t matter that he had an experienced navigator flying at his wing at all times or that he had stared at the flight plan long enough that he practically had every nav-map along the journey memorized. Cabbie was flying literally flying into the unknown. He had never been west of the Mississippi River, so he would be soaring overland that he had only heard stories about, refueling at airports that he had only read about.

The stress of flying blind quickly started to give Cabbie a pounding headache but was determined not to hold his squadron back. Plus the pain seemed to make his hearing more acute, and that made it easier to pick out the song of the radio frequencies he needed to listen to from among chatter of aircraft and the radio stations that the ground vehicles were so fond of listening too. In fact, sometimes he would get so engrossed in the sounds that he was listening to that the navigation plane on his wing would sometimes have to call him on the radio several times before he would respond.

By the time that the flock of cargo planes had flown over halfway across the continent Cabbie had completed his instrument navigation test. At Travis Air Force Base, near San Francisco, Sandy finally removed the opaque film from Cabbie’s windshield allowing the plane to finally see his surroundings.

“So, did I pass?” Cabbie asked timidly when vision finally got back into focus.

“With flying colors, Kid.” Sandy grinned back. “With flying colors.”

* * *

 

The cargo squadron rested at Travis AFB for two days, while the ground crews worked to prepare the C-119’s for their first trans-Pacific flight. They stripped all unnecessary weight from their air frames, partially filled their hulls with auxiliary tanks, and made sure that every aircraft had a solid tune up.

Cabbie too spend most of his down time catching up on some much needed sleep, but he was awoken from a doze by someone applying paint to his side. He glanced down to notice a gaggle of flight Chiefs surrounding a bucket of paints that Sandy was clearly holding court over.

“Should I be concerned?” Cabbie asked, mildly amused.

“Ah, good the guest of honor is finally awake.” One of the crew chiefs commented dryly.

“Which means that he can have a say in the process?” Another chief spoke up.

“Just not a final say.” Sandy interjected, before turning his full attention on Cabbie. “Kid, we just got word that your paperwork got through the Pentagon. You are officially an Air Force Navigator now. Given your new position, you are the first in your squadron to earn the right to wear nose art with pride.”

“The question is, what type of statement do you want to make.” A different tug pointed out.

Cabbie paused, a little bit in shock. Of course, he knew about nose art, everyone knew about nose art. Many of the old WWII planes wore the nose art they had earned during the war with pride, and the term had been mentioned in hush tones the fact eventually the young C-119’s might eventually earn theirs. So, when Cabbie found out that he had earned his without even seeing battle, he was incredibly surprised.

When it was clear the Cabbie wasn’t going to say anything, Sandy did instead. “Kid, I don’t think you understand just how big of an achievement flying cross country blind for the first time is. For a navigator, it is the most dangerous thing that you will ever do outside of an actual emergency.”

“And you did it on your first try too.” One of the other crew chiefs commented, and Cabbie was really starting to wish that he could keep all of the tugs straight. “It is not uncommon for a navigator to have to try passing the test three or four times before they get a passing score. You flew it on your first try and passed with high marks. You were clearly born to be a navigator.”

“Which brings us back to the question, what type of statement do you want to make? What type of nose art describes you?”

This time the crew chiefs let Cabbie think. There were so many directions that he could take things. There were, of course, the images of female planes. They were common, popular with the men, often incredibly explicit…and they were not really Cabbie’s style. Then there was the nose art that described a plane’s patriotism or war exploits, which really didn’t seem like an option for Cabbie yet. He couldn’t brag to the world about his exploits until he had at least seen battle. Cabbie didn’t think he would look good with intimidation paint and didn’t feel comfortable putting an off colored joke on his skin, which left one other category of nose art. Cabbie decided to create a design based on his job in the Air Force.

“I think I would like to have a compass with wings.” The C-119 quietly announced to the waiting crowed.

“A very fitting choice.” Sandy smiled, and Cabbie relaxed with his Chief’s obvious approval.

The tugs painted long into the night. While one crew was busily cleaning and stripping the polish from his nose, another group of tugs was busily sketching away on a piece of paper. When the two groups had finally decided on a sketch, a scruffy looking tug started to sketch out the picture on Cabbie’s skin using chalk.

Then the ritual of painting began. A coat of white paint and an outline of black, splashes of other colors going on to add the detail. Between layers of paint, the chiefs drank coffee and played cards, leaving Cabbie to doze with the cool feeling of drying paint on his cheek. Then when they were stratified that a layer was dried, they would all get up and grab their paint brushes once again.

It was past 2 AM when the painting was completed. Cabbie was kind of hoping that he was finally going to see what the tugs had been working on. Unfortunately, tradition and superstition meant that he was going to have to wait on that.

“It is bad luck for you to see the finished product before you have flown in it. I will make sure that you will get to spend some time in front of a mirror after we get to our next stop. Until then, get a good night’s sleep.” The Chief said, what he didn’t need to say was tomorrow at dawn they would fly west across the Pacific to the territory of Hawaii.

* * *

 

While many of the smaller planes would catch rides across the ocean on ships, bombers and cargo planes were too large to practically be moved in that manner. Instead, they would cross the great expanse of water using a process called island hopping. On the journey across the Pacific, the one between Travis AFB in San Francisco and was by far the longest.

Without his blindfold, Cabbie was able to tuck himself just behind the lead plane in an energy conserving V flying formation. From this position, the navigator could keep everyone pointed in the correct direction. It was a stressful job because the young plane knew that if his calculations were even off by one or two degrees, his squadron would end up running out of fuel over the great expanse of the Pacific Ocean and would most likely drown in the sea.

The weight of his squadron’s safely placed squarely on Cabbie’s wings and navigational training, the C-119 made sure that his course never wavered. He barely noticed when the various flight leaders switched who was in the lead or the hushed conversations that the aircraft behind him were having. Instead, Cabbie was making sure that he was completely tuned into his surroundings. He tracked the path of the sun as it raced across the sky and watched to the motion of the waves below him. He spoke with the C-47 weather planes that had been sent four hours ahead of them to get up to day reports on wind and weather conditions, but most of all, Cabbie listened to the singing of the navigational beacons and let them guide his team to safety.

Time ceased to have meaning, though in the back of Cabbie’s mind he knew that approximately one hour had passed for every 200 miles traveled, the distance was a much more important measurement of progress. They were 2,000 miles from their destination; then they were 1,000 miles, then 500 miles, finally there was a patch of green soaring out of the blue of the ocean. Their destination was insight.

Cabbie was almost shaking from exhaustion and hunger by the time they made the final approach. A fact that Goose, the plane in the lead seemed to recognize when he indicated that the navigator should be the first of the squadron to land. Cabbie did so, rolling from the tarmac to the airport's apron without even applying his brakes. He didn’t even squawk when the Chief made a call over the radio for an airport fuel truck instead of having him fuel up at the depot like the others.

* * *

 

They airport ended up having the squadron sleep out on the apron, but Cabbie was too tired to really care.  So the navigator let himself drift to sleep next to his fellow C-119s under a canopy of stars. Unfortunately, a full night’s sleep was not in the cards.

“Come on, Kid. Time to get moving.”

Cabbie awoke to the Chief giving his propellers a sharp spin in the murky darkness of predawn. The C-119 gave out a choked groan as his tired pistons were exercised.

“I know you are exhausted Kid, but we need to get you topped off and on the runway. Today you have a short leg, but the weather planes are already giving reports of a squall line moving in. If you are going to guide everyone up to Midway before the storms hit, we are going to need to move now.”

“Okay, okay.” Cabbie rolled towards the fuel depot and winced as he tried to warm up his engines. He discovered that the command staff had already been roused which meant that there was a line for fuel when Cabbie rolled up. But to his surprise, the two flight leaders in front of him scooted out of the way to give him priority. It seemed like last night wasn’t a fluke then.

“Ready for the next step?”

“Midway is a smaller target, but I can hear its beacon singing from here so it should not be too much of a problem.” Cabbie yawned. “As long as the weather holds.”

“So they have already briefed you on the weather report then.” Feather stated between mouthfuls of oil.

“Of course they briefed him.” Bus was clearly trying to sound like someone in authority, but the massive yawn he gave kind of spoiled the effect. “What, it is not like we got enough sleep to recover for the level of flying we did yesterday.

“Sometimes I wish that the other troops had to spend more time in the front of the formation…” Goose’s rant was going full steam when Bus gave him a sharp poke in the tail feathers. When Bus had the other lead planes attention, he motioned towards Cabbie with a flap. Goose made a faint oh, sound before backtracking. “Present company exempted of course. We know that you are flying up front more than anyone else in the formation and we don’t want you to, you know…”

“Don’t worry about it.” Cabbie shrugged his flaps as he pulled forward out of the fuel bay giving Feathers the chance to pull up and top off his tanks. “Honestly, if I could find a way to navigate from the back of the V I would. Then you could grouch about me all you wanted.” 

“Cabbie.” Scissors smirked. “You do realize that half the time you are the only plane who as a clue where we are going right?”

“Haven’t you all looked over the maps…” Cabbie tried to counter.

“Slag yes we have gone over the maps. You on the other wing, memorized all of the navigation maps, and because we all have some common sense that survived basic training we are going to make sure that we are on your good side, so you don’t ‘accidently’ fly us into a volcano on a cloudy day.” Goose was clearly trying to make a joke, but it really didn’t make Cabbie feel any better. Joke or not, that statement told him that while Cabbie had access to the same perks as the squadron command staff, he was not their equal. If the three command staff picked up on the undertone of the jab they didn’t voice it, instead choosing to chuckle at Goose’s comment. “Well, should we go help the sergeants knock the sleep out of our butter bars?”

All four command planes headed back to where the squadron was parked out on the tarmac to start herding their flight mates towards the fuel bays. After a few long piston beats, Cabbie decided to join the command staff on this chore. The navigator figured that sooner everyone was up and fuel the sooner they would get back into the air. And the sooner they got off the ground, and in the air, the better Cabbie was going to feel. 

* * *

 

They didn’t outrun the squall. Everyone in the squadron knew that they were in this situation due to a combination of inexperience and exhaustion, but it still kind of felt like Mother Nature was really out to get them. The sky around the planes blackened and the wind started to scream around them, and then came the rain…drenching, blinding rain that made it difficult to stay in the V-formation.

With options quickly dwindling, four flight leaders decided to break the formation into distinct flights in the hope that flying in the smaller diamond formation would prevent anyone from getting lost. In front of all of the diamond formations, Cabbie flew alone. Locked onto Midway’s navigational beacon, he used his own radios to provide a navigational aid for those who followed him.

Over the open ocean this method of communication worked well, but as they approached the island, it became clear that the majority of the squadron did not have the experience to safely make a blind approach to an unknown airport. Someone was going to have to guild them into the runway. As Sandy called down to the airstrip below, Cabbie circled the island communicating his plan to the four flights in his wake.

“Bus, Goose, Feathers, Scissors, I need a fuel reading on your flight.” All flight leaders responded, and it became clear that one of Feathers aircraft was getting frighteningly low on fuel. “Okay, here is the plan. Alpha Flight is going to stay in a holding pattern at least three miles east of the island, Charlie Flight is going to be in a holding pattern at least three miles west of the island, and Delta Flight will be in a holding pattern three miles south. Bravo Flight I am going to guide you into landing first. Please circle directly above where you think the island is at 2,000 feet. I will meet you there and talk each of the aircraft down.

“Roger that.”

With his orders acknowledged, Cabbie turned on his running lights and made a touch and go approach to the runway. If he was going to talk fifteen other aircraft through successfully landing at this island, he was going to make sure that he knew exactly where the airstrip was.

* * *

 

It took just over an hour and a half before Cabbie could get his entire squadron on the ground and by the time Cabbie’s tires kissed the tarmac the worst of the storm had finally blown over. The C-119 went hunting for dinner in the last of the drizzle, only to find himself last in line. The rest of the squadron tried to move out of the way to give the navigator first dibs, but he just yawned and motioned for them to stay in place. It wasn’t going to take too long for the last three aircraft to get their fill.

While Cabbie was able to stand his ground when it came to the order of fueling, he didn’t have nearly as much luck when it came to where he would bunk. Turns out, there was only enough space to fit four of the sixteen aircraft into the local hangers. Three of those slots were being claimed by aircraft that needed some sort of repairs. The other slot had apparently been reserved for Cabbie. The plane tried to protest, but after it was clear that the rest of this squadron wasn’t going to listen to him, Cabbie decided to make the most of the moment. As a military cargo plane, everyone knew that nights in a hanger were few and far between. He might as well enjoy the sheltered warmth of sleeping indoors.

“Drink this.” The Chief said waking Cabbie from a doze. The tug put a can of oil in front of him, at one glance the plane knew from the markings that the liquid inside was the highest grade oil available through the military supply chain.

“But I am on duty.” Cabbie shied away from the can.

“You got your squadron safely on the ground, so your duty for today is done.”

“But…” The C-119 tried to make his point, but he didn’t have a chance against the more experience NCO.

“No butting me, Sir.” The Chief said staring Cabbie down in a way that left no room for argument. “Big planes need high-grade oil every once in a while to help keep things lubricated, especially when they have really worked their engines. You have mass enough that a couple of pints of the stuff isn’t going to get you drunk, but it will help keep you from burning up an engine on me while we are deployed.”

“Oh.” Cabbie muttered quietly as he bit down on the straw without a further complaint. It only took a couple of gulps to down the small can, which caused the C-119 to realize just how thirsty he had been. The Chief got him a second can, mid-grade this time which Cabbie took a little bit more time to savor. When he had finish topping off his oil, Cabbie asked a question that had been bothering him. “Did I do alright?”

“You did great, Kid.” The Chief gave Cabbie a soft pat on the nose. “You did great.”

* * *

 

After facing their first storm over the ocean, the entire unit was a little bit shy about going to sea once again. Luckily the next leg of the journey was a short hop of 1,181 miles or about 6 hours flight time. They let the tired squadron sleep in late before sending them on their way from Midway to Wake, but they still got to Wake before dark. The airstrip’s crew bedded the planes down so they could prepare for the last hop of the journey.

Wake Island to Tokyo, Japan was the second longest leg of the journey at just shy of 2,000 miles. After flying so many miles the previous couple of days everyone in the squadron was feeling both exhausted with the effort, and giddy with the knowledge that they had almost made it to their journey’s end. The whole squadron was unusually quiet on this leg. Each plane was holding their breath hoping that they were not going to run unto any of the issues that had plagued the Hawaii to Midway leg. They didn’t find anything, and even pushing against the winds of the Pineapple Express, the C-119’s crossed the ocean with good time.

It was early evening when the formation of C-119’s finally reached land and Cabbie could barely contain his relief when his tires finally kissed hard tarmac in Japan. His squadron had successfully faced their first real world challenge as a team. They had worked as a team and successfully cross the largest ocean on the planet. Tomorrow they would they would rest to recover from the brutal journey. The day after that, though, they would be briefed on their mission and start flying north to the battleground called Korea.

* * *

 

Cabbie’s storytelling was interrupted when the big plane gave a long yawn, and he took a moment to glance at his fellows who were focused on him with rapt attention. Cabbie glanced at the clock and nearly swore. He had been talking for a good 8 hours straight no wonder he was craving high-grade something fierce. O’ Jammer seemed to follow Cabbie’s eyes towards the clock and understood what the C-119 was feeling.

“Why don’t we take a break for the evening?” The Park Superintendant suggested. “And I will try to watch the clock a bit better and perhaps wrangle up some snacks for tomorrow’s segment of the story.” As the rest of the crowd started to file out of the park’s largest conference room, Jammer turned his full attention on Cabbie. “Now let’s get your tanks topped. After telling a marathon of a story like that today, dinner is on me.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The epic has begun. The intention of this story is to cover from June 1950 when Cabbie enters the service through 1974 when he is formally discharged. In order to get things right, I have been doing a boatload of research and I will be highlighting some of the references that I used here in the end notes. Because Cabbie crossed the Pacific Ocean in this chapter the research resources will relate to aircraft ferrying.
> 
> In order to determine what path Cabbie would have flown I pulled descriptions of flight plans from a number of C-119 flying squadrons. Out of these the best read was 'The C-Planes' by Bill Holder and Scott Vadnais. Another great resource is the Travis Air Force Base History page which talked a lot about how they prepared planes to make the transpacific journey. 
> 
> Well, that's a wrap. I hope that you will join me for the next chapter, but until then feel free to drop me a line and Blue Skies!


	3. Flying West

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cabbie and his flight-mates make their first trip from Japan to Korea. It was supposed to be a simple cargo run, but put those plans quickly get thrown out the window.

The early morning sunlight that was pouring into Cabbie’s hanger was golden, but that did little to brighten the big planes mood. It was only the second day of storytelling, and he was already mentally and emotionally exhausted. The situation made him feel old and brittle, almost like glass that would be shattered if it was bumped in the wrong way. Cabbie loathed the feeling, so he roused himself and decided to start working on his chores around base.

The first task was, of course, to start the coffee pot brewing in the main hanger. Cabbie’s firehouse brew was well known in the area. It was thick and black, and bitter enough to scare some of the younger recruits to the fire service, but to the old timers, it was a little slice of home. By the time the first pot had finished percolating, and Cabbie had taken brewers privilege and snagged the first cup, the thunder of Blade’s rooters could be heard in the distance. Cabbie took the opportunity to pour a second mug of the brew and meet the Chief out on the tarmac.

On some level, Cabbie really didn’t understand why Blade went out looking for spot fires every morning, even if they had been swimming in rain for the last week or the park was quiet with freshly fallen snow, or like today the ground was covered with a thick layer of frost. On a completely another level, Cabbie understood it completely. Searching for fires at dawn was Blade’s routine just like making the coffee was Cabbie’s. And the few times that weather or injury had prevented Blade from doing his morning ritual the chief tended to be pretty crabby the rest of the day.

The rumble of Blade’s engines as he made his final approach seemed to have roused Maru from his hanger. The tug glanced up at the helicopter preparing to land, and then skirted his way around the edge of the tarmac and into the main hanger. Probably in search of his own cup of morning wake up. The sight of the mechanic wandering through the base on autopilot made the big plane chuckle to himself.

“Is one of those mugs for me?” Blade’s drawl broke Cabbie’s revelry. “Or are you that under-caffeinated this morning?”

“Yes, sir.” Cabbie spun his propellers in a lazy salute as he nudged over the still steaming cup.

“Ready to take on the morning?” Blade asked, as he nosed his coffee.

 “Would you be if you had to spill your guts to the Spanish Inquisitor?” Cabbie kept his voice level quirked an eyebrow.

“Probably not.” Blade sipped his coffee thoughtfully. “Probably not, but at least you know when you finish the story that you will not have to tell it again.”

“I just wish I didn’t have to tell it in the first place.”

* * *

 

When Cabbie and Blade arrived at the Lodge, it was pretty clear that the number of people who had found some way to work from the conference room had grown considerably. Now in addition to accounting, legal, and the spattering from the security and interpretive ranger staff, Cabbie now had to talk to the road crew and a bunch of people from housekeeping as well. The big plane knew that it was the park’s off-season, but this was starting to get ridiculous.

Cabbie chuffed at the situation. Still, there was nothing that he could do about it, so he had Maru help pull out the various maps that he had stowed in his hull the night before.  Spreading the yellowing sheets of paper across the heavy oak table, couldn’t help be become a little bit nostalgic.

“Alright.” Cabbie used is command voice to quiet the various conversations in the room and call their attention to the maps spread before them. “I assume that most of you are not familiar with the geography of the Far East, so I took the liberty of bringing some of my old maps along to help give everyone some context.” Cabbie motioned to a small dot on the southern tip of Japan’s largest Island. “33o 52’ 53” N, 130o 39’ 06” E. Ashiya Airfield. It’s runway’s were too short and far away from the action to be practical for the jet planes of the day, but they suited us cargo planes just fine. As a result in August of 1950, my squadron found ourselves calling Ashiya home…”

* * *

 

The American Forces were in trouble. No one, of course, was saying that out loud. No vehicle in US military was that stupid, but the reports coming Korean peninsula were pretty depressing. The South Korean army and their American Allies had been pushed south until their backs were practically at the sea. The civilians that had been left behind in enemy territory and the soldiers who had been capture were experienced the brutal occupation and mass executions ordered by the North Korean regime. Every time the F-80 Shooting Star Fighter jets flew missions in support of the ground troops, they would return with stories bombed out roads and burned out vehicles. Still, it was kind of hard for the young C-119s to fully understand the terror that they were about to fly into.

“Do you think things are really as bad, as the fighters say it is over there?” Short asked quietly.

“I guess we will not know until we get over there.” Cabbie replied not bothering to look up from his maps. There were no navigation beacons in Korea, so Cabbie was going to have to have to get his squadron to its target airport with a combination of celestial navigation, visual landmarks, and dead reckoning. The prospect was completely terrifying for the navigator, but it seemed that Short wasn’t picking up on the other planes stress and thus continued to push the subject.

“I mean, we are cargo planes. They are not going to put us near the front lines…right?”

Cabbie sighed and pushed away from the map table so he could look Short in the eyes. “We are Combat Cargo and if what the C-47’s went through before use we are probably going to at least get shot at a couple of times during our deployment.”

 “So we are going to die here?” Short asked his eyes getting wide, and Cabbie realized that he probably could have approached the subject with a bit more delicacy. After all, through most of WWII, the bigger planes had suffered incredibly high casualties. Bigger aircraft had simply equaled bigger, less maneuverable targets. With the record of the last war, it was no wonder that Short was spooked.

“Not if I have anything to do with it.” Cabbie said turning back to the maps. He was resigned to the fact that many of the planes he was going to fly were going to be convinced that they were going to die here, and the only way that Cabbie was going to be able to alleviate some of that fear was to guide them through safe paths in the war zone. “Now Short, would you mind giving me some space. I still have a couple more maps to memorize before we fly out tomorrow.”

* * *

 

They assigned each aircraft a flight crew their second day in Japan, the morning that they were scheduled to start flying into Korea. Cabbie stood his wings rigidly at attention with the rest of his flight as crew chief assignments were read out. It took every ounce of the young navigator’s focus to keep from wincing when he saw some of the pairings. The tugs that they were assigning them looked as green, if not greener than the aircraft they would be assigned to. They were kids that were practically straight off the boat from the United States.

In an instant, Cabbie was suddenly even more grateful that he had someone as steadfast and reliable as Sandy manning his system. By the look in the eyes of the flight command crews, it was clear that the various flight leaders were feeling the same way about their crew chiefs. It was hard enough to fly into battle with a crew chief you knew in your hull; Cabbie couldn’t imagine being able to pull off the feat with someone he didn’t know. Yes, C-119s were cargo planes, but that didn’t mean that the aircraft lacked all concept of personal space.

The various members of the flight were only given an hour to get to know the new crew chiefs before the loading process began. While every C-119 in the flight had been informed that they would be spending the majority of their time ferrying trucks and construction vehicles that were too heavy to be transported by any other type of plane, the higher ups had decided to start the Cabbie’s squadron with something a bit easier to carry. On their first run, they would be carrying ammunition.

* * *

 

Cabbie had once thought that flying through the storm over the Pacific Ocean would be one of the scariest things that he would ever have to do, but flying across the Korea Straight with enough high explosives in his hull to blow his entire unit kingdom come bright a whole new level of terror into the young planes life. At the moment all he could do was trust his instincts try to fly across a 120 mile stretch of water and hope that his dead reckoning landed his unit part of the coast that was currently under Allied controlled without the help of navigational beacons.

The planes in the rest of the V formation seemed to sense Cabbie’s discomfort. They were unusually quiet and seemed to be flying tighter than normal. Even the sight of land ahead of them didn’t quiet anyone’s nerves as none of them knew what types of enemy antiaircraft ordinance might be hiding among the rolling coastal hills.

The young navigator searched those hills for any type of landmark he could find. There was nothing…nothing…then something glimpsed out of the corner of his eye. Was that a hill that looked like a fish hook? And that series of bends on the coast, he had memorized that pattern on the maps. Suddenly things clicked together, and Cabbie knew exactly where they were.

“Bank two degrees to the starboard. We are coming in a bit too far to the south.” At Cabbie’s order, everyone realigned themselves to the new course without a single word.

 _“Are we in enemy territory?”_ Feather question from the tail end of the V finally broke the radio silence.

“No, not unless the battle lines have changed significantly.” Cabbie chewed on his lip and did a little bit mental math. “We are about 30 miles out of the airstrip suggest hailing…”

Then they all heard the sound that would cause any cargo plane’s engine to miss a few strokes, the scream of aircraft diving towards them from behind. This far out from the airstrip they were sitting ducks and while their instinct was to scatter they all knew that their only hope to survive this type of situation was to stick tightly in formation. Everyone held their breaths preparing for the shots that they knew were coming when their ears were met by instead by a thick Texas drawl.

_“Those don’t look like vampires.”_

_“What?”_ One of the C-119’s behind Cabbie squawked.

 _“Vampires, you know the twin-boon fighter jets that the Brits keep bragging about. Except Vampires are jets, and your paint is all wrong.”_ Another aircraft voice crackled cross the radio, clearly amused by the reaction they had just gotten.

 _“And there is the fact that the Commonwealth hasn’t decided to join the fun yet.”_ The Texan drawled again as he comfortable maneuvered himself through the middle of the V. Cabbie glance downward and was finally able to identify the aircraft that was harassing them as a P-51 Mustang. Of course, it would be a pair of fighter planes that decided to poke their noses into places where they didn’t belong.

_“They’re too big to be P-38s.”_

_“And they are way too slow to be Lightnings. Not that Lightenings were all that fast, to begin with.”_ The Mustang ribbed.

Cabbie had a hard time keeping his mouth shut with the last statement. Yes, they were not exactly built for speed, but they weren’t that slow, and they were carrying close to three tons of cargo a piece right now. Not all of the planes in the formation showed the same level of restraint as the Navigator, though. Goose, the plane currently flying the lead plane position spoke, clearly unable to hold his tongue any longer. _“We are C-119 Packet Planes in route to Taegu Airstrip to deliver supplies.”_

 _“You guys have got to get a better call sign than that.”_ The lead Mustang finally managed to stammer when he stopped laughing. _“Assuming it is your time landing in Korea?”_

 _“Affirmative.”_ Goose bit out, clearly trying to hide how frustrated he was getting with the pair of fighter planes.

 _“Understood.”_ The lead Mustang chuckled, but at least got down to business. _“Taegu can be a bit challenging to line up for your first time. Stay in formation. Ricky and I will fly you all in.”_

* * *

 

Taegu airstrip was…primitive. It was the only way that Cabbie could come up to describe it. The dirt runway must have turned to mud months again and even with the effort of the heavy earth moving machinery parked off to the side it was a rutted mess that threw up enough clay to make every C-119’s bellies sticky. One look around, and it was abundantly clear why none of the jets were flying missions out of this place, there poor little sensitive engines would have thrown a fit immediately. Luckily for the military, prop planes, especially the radial piston prop planes were made of tougher stuff and could fly out of just about anywhere.

As their holds were emptied of badly needed supplies, Cabbie’s squadron began looking forward to being able to fly back to their nice, safe, comfortable base back on Japan and possibly taking a bath to clean off all the mud. Unfortunately, the war changed their plans. The newly arrived C-119’s were the only aircraft in the theater capable of lifting anything heavier than a jeep, and their configuration meant it was finally practical to roll the bigger trucks on board. It was a resource that the local commander’s couldn’t pass up.

“Your squadron is ordered to stay put here and help with evacuations.” A gruff looking chief with Lt. Col, oak leaves ordered.

“But we are not…” Feather tried to bring up the fact that we had only been cleared to transport basic supplies and our crew members, but the jeep didn’t even bother staying long enough to hear him out.

“That is war for you.” Sandy remarked, clearly unconcerned by the fact Cabbie’s entire squadron were currently parked in a war zone waiting for further orders. They were so screwed.

* * *

 

Night was falling over the airstrip, which only seemed to stress out the C-119’s parked on the apron even more. Even though the battle lines hadn’t moved any closer, the sounds of rockets, bombs, and gunfire seemed to echo worse in the dark. And if you squinted you could just see the flashes of explosions on the horizons. The whole situation made the young planes feel like very large, sitting targets.

“Don’t huddle together!” Goose ordered as he stalked the rows of frightened aircraft.

“Huddling together just makes us all more of at target. If we stay in rows, it makes it harder for the enemy to take the entire unite out at the same time.” Scissors added, from behind the rows. It was a sound piece of information, but in Cabbie’s opinion, it was poorly timed. His fellow C-119’s were jumpy enough. They didn’t need additional information about their dangers they faced. These young planes needed to be told that if they followed orders things would be okay, even if that statement was a complete lie.

Cabbie settled lower on his tires, and glanced around the air strip. While his fellow cargo planes fought the urge to huddle and cower, the various other vehicles on base seemed to be taking the whole situation in stride. Ground support vehicles were rolling around getting their jobs done. Mustang aircraft were constantly coming and leaving on patrol. Those who were currently on the ground gathered a cluster of four or five planes. Every once in a while the cluster would glance over in the C-119’s direction, and Cabbie could swear that the fighter planes were snickering at them.

Not that that really surprised Cabbie. Every cargo plane knew their place in the military hierarchy. They were smack dab on the bottom, right above tanker trucks. Slag, even the lumbering long distance bombers commanded more respect than they did. Eyes scanning the clump of Mustangs scattered around the airstrip, Cabbie couldn’t help but wonder just how many enemy planes those war birds had taken out. Based on their paint the majority of them must have served in the last war, flying against the Japanese Zeros. They must have some truly incredible stories. Not that they would ever share them with a greenhorn cargo plane.”

“Sir, you are going to have to ask our navigator.” Goose was waving his wing tip at him, and Cabbie had to bite his lip to keep from swearing. If the CO’s needed a navigator, it probably meant they were going to need to do something Cabbie wasn’t going to like.

“Lieutenant.”

“Yes, Sir.”

“We need you aircraft to transport a bunch of shot up artillery units back to Tokyo, and your flight leader says that you are the one who can tell me your ability to complete this mission.”

“I don’t know, Sir.” Cabbie had spoken before his brain had fully been able to process his words. Immediately he regretted them, but kept his eyes straight ahead and prayed that he wouldn’t shake.

“What do you mean you don’t know?” The Jeep practically hissed.

“I mean that I don’t have enough information to know, Sir. This is our first operational mission, Sir, and to be honest I only had time to memorize the routes to get to Korea and our initial orders were to return empty to Japan, so I haven’t been able to do the calculations about what types of loads we can comfortably carry back…”

That got him a roll of the eyes from the Jeep. “What would you need to get these calculations done?”

“To start with a map would be useful and it wouldn’t hurt to get some estimation on the weight of the vehicles that we would be transporting.” Cabbie almost left statement there, but belatedly realized his mistake addressing an officer and barked out a hasty “Sir!” 

“We will get you a map, and I will let you talk with one of the engineers about weight estimations.” The Jeep looked up at the cargo plane with the cold ferocity of a drill sergeant, and it took all of Cabbie’s energy to keep from flitching. “And that better, because we need, get your crew loaded up so you can fly out by dawn.”

“Wilco, Sir.” Cabbie forced himself to look the commanding officer in the eyes, with far more confidence than he actually felt. “Wilco.”

* * *

 

To complete his calculations, Cabbie was given the use of functional hangers. As far as the young plane could tell, this was primarily due to the fact that the higher ups were trying to minimize the amount of light outside. Probably as a vain attempt to prevent Taegu from becoming a target of enemy fire. The reality of the situation was, everyone knew where this derelict little airstrip was.  If an aircraft managed to sneak past the half-dozen Mustangs stationed here to protect it, there was nothing to prevent that plane from bombing the field to kingdom come. If Cabbie were in this hanger when it happened, he probably wouldn’t even have time to act.

Shaking himself, the young plane tried to push the unproductive thoughts out of his head and focus instead at the work on hand. According to his measurements, it was approximately 630 miles from Taegu air field to Tachikawa Airbase. This meant that Tokyo would be well within their range, as long as the C-119’s had been topped off with fuel and were not over loaded. By Cabbie’s math, the largest vehicle they could realistically carry would be one of the Duce-and-a-Halfs, but that would be pushing their limits.

“Okay master navigator, it is time to take a break.” Sandy’s words made Cabbie jump, but the plane quickly settled when he noticed what his crew chief was carrying. Without hesitation, the C-119 pushed away from the map table and made a beeline for the heavy, oversized mug. Only after Cabbie had taken a big gulp did he realize his mistake.

“Gawa.” Cabbie choked on the bitter brew. “What was that?”

“Coffee.” Sandy said taking a long slow sip from his own mug.

“That was supposed to be coffee?”

“Supposed to be?” Sandy gave a long barking laugh. “Son, this is what coffee is meant to be. That barely brown liquid that they have been feeding you in the mess halls up until this point, basically water. This on the other hand,” the tug waved his mug under Cabbie’s nose which of course caused the young plane to wince again, “this is the manna of the gods.”

“Maybe the manna of the gods of the underworld.” Cabbie sighed, wondering if he could possibly get a mug of tea instead. I a couple hours he knew that he was going to really need the caffeine, but he wasn’t sure if he could swallow that coffee pot sludge.

“Black as tar, bitter as sin, and hot as Hell.” Sandy closed his eyes and wax poetic as he dumped half of Cabbie’s mug back in the Hanger’s coffee pot and filled it with a couple finger’s full of clean, hot water. Then he dumped a couple tablespoons of sugar into the mixture and gave it a good stir. “Once you have got a taste for military coffee there is no going back. Once you have mastered brewing it, well kid, that is when I know you are a proper officer in the US Air Force.” Sandy placed the newly filled mug in front of Cabbie. “Give that a try and see if you find it more palatable.”

The liquid was still so bitter that grated on Cabbie’s tongue, but the liquid was also cloyingly sweet. It was a nearly painful combination, but at least this time he could at least choke it down. He downed the whole cup and turned back to work, hoping that the caffeine from this cup would get him through the night, because Chrysler knew he really didn’t want any more coffee.

* * *

 

They took off into the sunrise. Flying east on a route that differed significantly from the one than they had flown in using and at the moment they were all struggling a bit to stay in V-formation. It was a small wonder that they were flying at all given how exhausted the where. Very few of the C-119s had managed to get a wink of sleep. The combination of sounds from the battle, the constant coming and going of the Mustang fighters, and the cold misery of being covered by mud had made their assigned concrete apron back in Japan seem like an absolute luxury.

The whole situation was made even more uncomfortable by the fact everyone of the C-119’s holds was currently full of squirming soldiers. It was one thing to be carrying your crew chief in there with your cargo, but it was something completely different to have a jeep, truck, or even a Duce in their rubbing against your ribs and complaining every time you hit a rough patch.

When they finally made it to Tokyo, the local flight control kept them in a circling pattern for a good 45 minutes while they figured out where to put them on the crowded tarmac. The C-119’s did their best not to keep their mouths shut, but they were all tired, thirsty for oil, and hungry for fuel because of the weight they were carrying. Their landings, once they finally were cleared for final approach were a bit sloppy, but not even the flight leaders cared. They had been asked to complete a job, and they had gotten it done. Sadly, the many of the other aircraft didn’t see things that way. Soon their heckling filled the C-119s radio communication channels.

“Get some sleep while they are unloading you.” Feather ordered the C-119s on the tarmac. The comment caused Cabbie to raise an eyebrow in question. “As soon as they are done we are ordered to fly back to Ashiya and pick up another load of ammunition. From there it is right back to Taegu.”

“Great.” Cabbie muttered under his breath, before trying to settle on his tires for a nap. If this was what the war was going to be like, it was clear that the C-119s were going to need to grab every wink of shut eye they could manage.

* * *

 

At first, the planes were assigned to fly a triangle between Ashiya, Taegu, and Tachikawa, but on August 11th their orders changed. Now they would spend the nights at Taegu air field getting loaded up with patched up vehicles and then fly them west 630 miles to Tachikawa AB in Tokyo at dawn. From Tokyo, they were ordered to fly east just over 500 miles to return to their own base in Ashiya for a couple of hours in the afternoon, before flying back west to Tokyo to pick up a load of trucks ready to go to the battle front.

Day in and day out the C-119s would end up flying close to 2,300 miles, only catching snippets of sleep whenever they were on the ground. Pretty much everyone was exhausted, and moral was starting to suffer badly…not that anyone was willing to admit it. But there really nothing any of the planes could do about it. As much as the fighter planes might harass them or the bombers teased them for being slow, the ground war desperately needed the C-119s lift capacity. While there were a lot of other cargo planes flying in the theater, the C-119s were the only ones with the ability to fly any vehicle that massed larger than a jeep. With that knowledge, the squadron of young planes was comforted by the knowledge that even if they were not respected, they were at least critical to the war effort. Unfortunately, that type of knowledge could only get a plane so far. The whole squadron was desperate for additional support, which would eventually come.

“Good news.” Goose announced to the group as they mustered for their mid-afternoon fly back to Tokyo.

“We are getting a day off?” One of the flight crew sergeants shouted, a mixture of hope and sarcasm in his voice.

“No,” Goose’s admits lead to a choirs of groans, which didn’t stop the lead plane from trying to put a positive spin on the situation “but we are getting help. We have a couple more squadron’s of C-119’s that are going to be coming to our aid. They are expected to arrive on September 4th.”

* * *

 

“…once the other three C-119 squadron’s got settled at Ashiya our work really started to ramp up. American and her allies were preparing to take back the Korean Peninsula, and you would be shocked by just how much stuff invading a country requires. Soon we would be delivering those supplies directly to the frontlines, and I would get my first taste of battle.” And that is where Cabbie decided to pause the story for the night. Several vehicles, most notable Maru tried to badger him into getting a few more details, but the old plane wouldn’t budge his position by an inch.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's Note- Thank you at ton for reading this chapter. I am doing my best to keep my readers informed about the types of research that it has taken to get this epic off the ground. Today I would like to highlight the stack of National Geographic, USGS, and historic military maps used to figure out how the flight plans might of have worked. I had a list of airstrips used by the C-119 fleet throughout but now any information about how they might have might have flown between them. I have been using the maps and my flight plotter to create some simple flight plans and then checking my numbers using Google Maps.
> 
> Well, that is a wrap for today's chapter. C-130 signing out!


	4. Underfire

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Work on the front lines proves to be more dangerous than Cabbie expected.

The first true snow storm of the winter season rolled in sometime after two am, and by the time the sun started to crest over the nearby mountains there was already a good three-ish inches covering the tarmac. Cabbie took an opportunity to peak his nose out of his hanger door, and decided that for once he was going to be lazy this morning. The snow was new enough that there wasn't an avalanche risk, but it was deep enough that it would mean operations around the park would be delayed as the road crew's plows cleared the back top.

The old plane gave a long, therapeutic yawn as he rolled over to the wood stove in the corner of his hanger. Stoking the coals back to life and throwing on a couple of additional logs for good measure. The plane was soon basing in the warmth of the crackling flames. Somewhere along the line Cabbie must have dozed off in front of the fire, because he was startled awake by the sound of banging on his hanger door.

Worried that there might be an emergency, Cabbie quickly spun around towards the hanger door, clipping his wing against the wall for his trouble. He winced. Even though the plane could tell that all he had gotten was a touch of hanger rash, that type of a ding was going to smart for a while. Breathing through the pain he cautiously made his way towards the door and nosed it open, only to find that there the base mechanic with a smug expression on his lips.

"Did you really think you could leave us with a cliff hanger like that and still get away with sleeping in?" Maru smirked ask he rolled back towards the tower, his only mug of steaming coffee attine.

* * *

By the time Cabbie had downed his second cup of coffee, he was feeling awake enough to start helping Maru clear the snow away from the runway…Blade was still holed up in his hanger for all of this because helicopters of his make were worthless in cold weather. By the time the surfaces were where clear and deiced, the Chief finally rolled out of his hanger giving everyone between him and his coffee a grumpy glare. Knowing what was best for them, both Cabbie and Maru quickly got out of the way.

The rest of the chores around base were completed quickly and the whole crew as able to make their way down to the lodge by ten that morning…which was apparently not quick enough for many of vehicles who had decided to park themselves in the conference room. Luckily for Cabbie, Maru did a pretty good job of prickling at the paper pushers who where wining about the wait. After all, if they had really wanted Cabbie to get down here faster, they should have come up and helped plow the snow away from the runway so he could safely take off.

Muttering and complaints handled, Cabbie took a moment to try to piece together his thoughts in a coherent manor. Taking a deep breath, he launched into the day's tale. "Well, it looks like today the time for telling was cut a bit short, so let's not beat around the bush. Now that the US military had four whole squadrons of C-119s at their beck and call, the higher ups were a lot more willing to take risks. And even though we cargo planes were technically not combat trained, they started to push our operations closer and closer to the front lines…"

* * *

It was truly surprising that Cabbie's squadron had been stationed in Japan for nearly a month. Flying at least one and sometimes up to three trips between Japan and Korea had caused time to slip past all of them in an exhausted haze. That said, it looked like things were finally starting to go their way. Splitting the load across four squadrons was meaning that the planes were finally getting ahead of their workload and the higher ups where hopefully that in the next couple of days some of the flights might be able to get a full day off for minor repairs and just to have some time to relax.

As a member of the first squadron deployed, Cabbie was hopeful that his flight would be towards the front of the line. While the young planes endurance had greatly improved over the last couple of weeks of constant flying, he could tell that the constant stress was causing his engines to need a little bit of TLC. Right now it was simply a few pistons on his left engine that were not firing quite right, but Cabbie knew that if he left it too long the wear and tear could lead to damaged that would ground him for a couple of days before he could get it fixed. The navigator was wondering just how long he could put things off before it became a real problem when a radio call from their home airbase interrupted his thoughts.

" _Inbound C-119, please divert south to Tsuiki Air Field, I say again, inbound C-119 units divert south Tsuiki Air Field. Ashiya Air Field is closed for all air traffic. Over."_

" _Wilco."_  Bus keyed his mike as he glanced over at Cabbie who was flying just off his wing.  _"Any estimate when the airfield will be open again? Over."_

" _Negative."_  The tower operator at Tsuiki sounded pretty shaken, but remained professional.  _"Things aren't pretty here. It is going to take at least a couple of hours and it is possible that it may take a couple of days depending on the investigation. Over."_

" _Rodger that, Boxcars Out."_  Bus replied, before switching to flight's frequency.  _"Well, Cabbie, it looks like you should probably take the lead on this, seeing that I assume you have a clue where on the blasted island Tsuiki Air Field is."_

* * *

The diversion to Tsuiki only took an additional 30 minutes, 15 of which was spent in a holding pattern waiting for a flight of jets that held court there to have a priority landing. Once the cargo planes they were finally on the ground, the higher ups finally explained why they had been diverted. There had been a crash at Ashiya Air Field. A C-119 had lost control on final approach, and when the details about just how fire there had been on the tarmac started to filter in, everyone hoped that entire air crew had died on impact. At least, that would have been quick and real painless compared with the alternative of literally burning alive.

Cabbie hadn't personally known the plane or his flight chief, but it was still difficult not to feel the dark cloud of despair that was starting to encircle the C-119s. After all, it seemed like a cargo planes greatest enemy in this war was the tarmac. The first aircraft fatality of the Korean War had been a C-47 that didn't have a chance to get off the ground before the airstrip had been bombed, and now the first C-119 death occurred because of a stupid accident on friendly soil. It was enough to make an aircraft feel sick.

For once the jet planes actually seemed to sense the raw emotion of the situation and gave the cargo planes some respect. They gave the mammoth planes a wide berth so that they could grieve in their own way…they problem was none of them really knew how. C-119's sat on the tarmac trying to sort out their emotions.

* * *

For the next week all the C-119s practically flew in a daze. Even when they were moved back to their home base of operation at Ashiya, it was hard to stay chipper when they had the blackened patch of tarmac as a constant reminder of their own mortality. For Cabbie these emotions ended up translating to a strong desire to just sleep, but an inability to actually get some shuteye when he got the chance. He had lost count of the hours that he had spent staring up at the stars practicing his celestial navigation exercises when he probably should have been catching some Z's.

It would take a change in strategy to finally snap the cargo planes out of the funk they had been fighting. Unfortunately for all of the planes involved, it was not a change that any of the C-119s liked…especially not any of the flight commanders that had been dragged into the meeting for the announcement.

"What do you mean they want us to start dropping ammo to the front lines? I thought that was what we were practically doing." Bus stammered in disbelief.

"I believe that we have been dropping off cargo at forward airstrips, what we are asked to do now is actually dump ammo boxes directly to where the fighting is occurring. If that works well, in a couple of missions we are going to be dropping fuel out the doors as well." Stern, one of the flight commanders from the fresh batch of squadrons, tried to add helpfully.

"But last time I checked, those ammo boxes are a bit too big for us to drop things out the side door, and that is the only hatch that we can open during flight." Feather tried to come to Bus's aid.

"Don't worry." It was Cabbie's crew chief Sandy that stepped up. "We will be removing your back clamshell doors for this type of mission. Then we will have plenty of room to toss things out your back end."

"You want us to what!" Someone in the group blurted out, and while Cabbie didn't know exactly who did it, he agreed with the sentiment exactly.

"It is not like we are going to make everyone try it at the same time." Sandy shrugged casually, which only seemed to make the aircraft around him feel more uncomfortable. "On the first mission most of you will be carrying special pallets designed to be tossed out of the side doors. It will only be Bus and Cabbie who will have their clamshell doors off."

Cabbie thought he took the new pretty well. He had done his flaps down and his manor collected. In short, this basically meant that Cabbie at least managed to be well clear of his fellow aircraft before he threw up.

* * *

The preparations for the new cargo mission proceeded in a whirlwind. There were tools to be gathered, materials to be staged, and a new base of operation to be set up because while there wasn't a whole lot of distance between Korea and Japan no plane wanted to fly across an ocean with their back end exposed to the elements. Cabbie and Bus had been pulled from the regular triangular flow of cargo, to practice making low steady passes over a couple of rice fields, while a few of their fellow planes practiced having things tossed out their side door with their crew chiefs.

On the first evening when the various planes selected to start dropping supplies over the war zone got together and started to talk it became pretty darn clear that no plane felt ready to take on the war rarely waited for an aircraft to master the procedures they were faced with. It was with that realization that Cabbie and Bus made the flight to Taegu Airfield on the southern tip of Korea, their new home for the next two weeks. As soon as they were situated, the pair of planes were swarmed by mechanic crews prepared to modify them to air drop large loads.

* * *

"Why was I selected for this mission? I mean there are close to 70 C-119s delayed to Korea, how in the world did Bus and I get picked out of that crowd." Cabbie finally blurted out the question that had been bugging him for the last two days, while Sandy was helping a crew of mechanics remove his clam shell doors.

"You got picked because I suggested you two." Sandy didn't even miss a beat, or even look up from his work.

"You didn't…" The young plane couldn't keep the pain and horror out of his voice.

"Oh, yes I did." Sandy bulldozed his reply right over the aircraft's train of thought. Rolling around from his previous position by the C-119's twin tails, the Crew Chief parked himself by Cabbie's nose and glared up at him. "Listen kid, you have been flying around Japan like you cockpit is caught in the clouds. We both know why, and honestly it is a perfectly reasonable reaction in most situations, but you don't have the luxury of being in a typical situation. You are a navigator, you are in the middle of a war, and if you don't get your Dodge elevators out of your own turbulent wake you are not only going to get yourself killed, but take your entire flight, and possibly your whole squadron with you."

"I am not…"

"You're not that bad?" The Chief practically spat. "If you really believe that you are far denser than I thought, and I shouldn't have trained you to be a navigator." Sandy's words almost made Cabbie feel like someone had tweaked his engines, hard. The plane tried not to wince, but then the Chief's eyes softened and used his tine to give the C-119's nose a soft pat. "Kid, Cabbie, you're the right plane for this job. Even if the accident hadn't thrown you off your game for a bit, I still would have volunteer you for this mission because while everyone knows that Bus is the most skilled at low altitude flying, I know that you are the one that can keep him pointed in the right direction while you are both under fire." "While I have a feeling that some of the other squadrons might fight me on this, but I think that you and Bus are the best pair of C-119s that we have got and the fact that you two already know how to work as a team is only icing on the cake."

* * *

In order to learn the strengths and weaknesses of C-119s during combat flights, the Air Force assigned each group of two to four planes to a specific flight path. For Bus and Cabbie meant flying as a close pair, low and slow over the active battle lines. Even though that was pretty fast and high for a ground vehicle, to an airplane moving only 75 miles an hour, 250 feet above the earth felt incredibly uncomfortable. Literally, the ground felt so close it almost seemed like Cabbie could touch the ground with his landing gear if he lower them.

The first pass that the two airplanes made across the warzone went without a hitch. Both Bus and Cabbie were able to slice across their designated series of foxholes and drop off of a stack of supplies. While the actual drop didn't go completely perfectly, as they circled upwards to gain altitude over the enemy territory, it appeared that most of the ammunition stayed on the American side of the battle.

Unfortunately, on the planes second pass the enemy was ready for them. Soon after Cabbie felt Sandy shove the heavy boxes of ammunition out of his hatch, the aircraft started to hear the sound of metal hitting against metal at high speed. Moments later the young plane realized that he was the source of the sound as pain began to make his skin feel like it was being torn apart.

"I think I was hit…" Cabbie breathed through is teeth.

" _You think?"_  Sandy asked over his headset.

"Well I have never been shot before, so I can't tell you for sure." Cabbie gasped out as he fought to keep pace with Bus who was busily climbing out of danger. "What I can tell you that whatever happened it hurts like slag."

" _Let's get back on the ground to figure out what just happened."_ Sandy sounded pretty calm given the situation, which gave the C-119 some hope that the situation wasn't as bad as it seemed.

"Good idea." The plane winced as he forced himself to remain steady as he followed his lead plane back to base.

Cabbie was quiet enough on the homeward leg of their trip that even Bus started to get a little bit worried. The plane had swung under his wingman to get a good look at his belly in the hopes of getting a good look at the damage that Cabbie had apparently sustained, but commented that he didn't really see anything the matter.

Sandy gave a more detailed inspection and discovered that Cabbie had in fact taken a few bullet hits. Most had been taken at a high enough altitude that they had only left dings in the planes skin, but a couple had punctured the metal. The most impressive one was the projectile that had apparently gone clean through the plane tail's horizontal stabilizer.

"Don't worry, you will get use to these types of injuries pretty soon." Sandy tried to sooth as he applied solder to the still smarting wound. "Eventually you will not even notice."

"You know that isn't a particularly comforting statement." Bus muttered under his breath from a little ways down the tarmac. The cargo plane was hovering, but neither Cabbie or Sandy was going to make a big deal about it.

"It wasn't supposed to be." The Chief paused from his work for a moment when Cabbie gave a particularly pained hiss of discomfort when the hot tool touched the planes skin. "Sooner rather than later you are going to be in the exact same boat as your Wingman here. In fact, I think the only reason that you aren't sitting next to him on the next piece of tarmac is that Cabbie was flying behind you, and the ground troops are still learning to shoot at a moving aircraft. In this case, I don't think they had enough lead time on their shots."

It took a moment, but eventually the full meaning of Sandy's words filtered into Bus's brain. "So you think that those bullets were meant for me…"

"Pretty much." Sandy shrugged, turning back to his work. "It is the curse of being wingman. Sometimes when they miss the lead plane they hit you instead."

* * *

The Mustangs that Bus and Cabbie shared the base with started treating the C-119's significantly differently after Cabbie took a couple bullet holes. Apparently proving themselves in combat was enough to get the fighter planes to shut up, even though it was clear that they would never consider the cargo planes to actually be equal. That at least was to be expected. Cargo was at the bottom of the totem pole while fighter planes sat squarely at the top.

The Mustangs didn't have to treat them nicely, but both Bus and Cabbie appreciated the gesture…especially as they continued to fly low and slow cargo missions above active fighting. The style of flight required to get the ammo and food where it needed to be made them easy targets for the enemy. Based on the growing number of pockmarks and small holes spreading across the two planes bellies it was pretty clear that the enemy's aim was unfortunately improving. The pain from these injuries was starting to make both airplanes a bit crabby.

But at least there was hope on the horizon. The knowledge of a day off after all of the danger of flying missions of the front line of the war almost made the risk worth it. The key word there was almost, because everyone knew that half of that day off would be spent getting the ding and holes from the rain of bullets they would fly through pounded out or soldered closed with no anesthetic to numb the sensation. Still, Bus and Cabbie volunteered their flight for a second rotation dumping even before the first one had ended.

* * *

…we moved a whole lot of tonnage in the first two months in Korea, but we could never have guessed that those early missions would only be a drop in the bucket compared with the missions that were to come. Nor could we have guessed that by the end of the year many of us would start being used as low altitude bombers." Cabbie finished, then unlocked his breaks and rolled out of the room. He was halfway to the tarmac before the spell of the story had been broken.


	5. And the Parachutes Fell Like Rain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exhaustion starts to set in as the planes drip to supplies to ground troops on the long march north.

Cabbie awoke exhausted and it was only day 4 of his storytelling. Part of his tiredness came from the mental focus it took to drudge up the stories from his past, part of it came from the fact he was doing the same task all day, but the plane suspected most of the grogginess came from the nightmares that had begun to haunt his nights. From past experience, he suspected that some of those nightmares were only going to get worse has he told some of the more painful aspects of his story. Honestly, if he had had the ability to run away from the whole situation he would have done so, but he was honored bound to make his tale part of the historical record and the old warplane was determined to do a thorough enough job that he would never have to be asked to do this type of thing again.

Even though Cabbie was having trouble shaking the bone weariness that he had woken with, he still started rolling before the dawn. Yawning, he surveyed the runway and after he determined that it was clear, shot off a quick message to the tower at the lodge letting them know that he was going for a quick flight. If he was going to be cooped up in the lodge again all day, Cabbie at least wanted to exercise his engines this morning.

* * *

The sun was just starting crest the eastern mountains when Cabbie's tires finally kissed the tarmac. All ready he could tell that the flight had been good for him. He engines were not as tight now that they had been exercised, and while he was still tired, the old plane wasn't as filled with nervous energy. Even though it was going to cut into his off duty fuel allowance, Cabbie suspected that going for a good flight after today's storytelling would serve him well. Unfortunately, it appeared that not everyone appreciated his time in the sky as much as he did.

"Did you really have to wake us all at up 4:42 in the morning?" The base's mechanic glared up at him from the edge of the apron.

"Not my fault you are a light sleeper." Cabbie yawned in reply while going off to search for the all important cup of morning coffee. Maru had already gotten the pot running and taken brewer's privilege so Cabbie helped himself to the second cup. It wasn't as burnt and black as the plane preferred, but he wasn't in a position to complain.

"Let's head down early." Maru finally interrupted the comfortable silence.

"What about Blade?" Cabbie asked as he got a second mug full of liquid sanity.

"What about him?" Maru shrugged. "He's got rotors and he can make his own way down when he wakes up. Anyway, I have got some paperwork that needs to get into accounting and I would rather get it in before the fun starts."

* * *

When Maru suggested that they head down early so that the mechanic could get some paperwork done, Cabbie really could have known that the tug really intended to have the plane 'help' with said paperwork. That said, Maru was filling the spare parts budget for the next field season, so Cabbie couldn't complain too much.

As the two vehicles worked on crossing all the Ts and dotting the Is, the lodge really started to wake up around them. The morning staff were already in the full swing of their routines and the early rising tourists were out the door enjoying the relative quiet of the trails at this time of day. Various vehicles who had been listening to Cabbie's story the last three day's began to filter in and find their places in the conference room.

One of the last to arrive was the Chief. By the look that Blade gave Cabbie it was a pretty good indication that the plane hand interrupted his boss's beauty sleep as well, but the helicopter didn't mention anything and kept his nose in his gift shop coffee instead. Once the Chief was settled, Cabbie decided that this was as good of a time as any to begin. He cleared his throat and instantly every eye in the room was staring at him. With a deep breath, the C-119 plowed forward.

"It took the military less than four missions to realize that doing front line cargo drops was a specialized job. They ended up selecting 10 planes for the job…and as you might expect by this point my Crew Chief volunteered me for the responsibility. As the C-119 squadron sent to Korea we were over represented with 6 aircraft, Goose took on the role of lead plane, Feather, Bus, Duce, Short, and of course myself rounding out the group. The other four planes came out of unit based in Chicago. Their names were Alto, Stratus, Mammatus, and Nimbus. And while we were all professional about our work, we didn't exactly get off on the right foot…"

* * *

To say that Cabbie hated Stratus's guts would be an understatement, but it paled in comparison with Goose's loathing towards Alto. Unfortunately for everyone involved, the longer that the planes from the two squadrons worked together it appeared that the feeling was mutual. By day five of the incident things finally came to a head when the cargo planes had been hit by a painful combination of enemy and friendly fire. Everyone had taken a couple of hits, but Feather, Duce, and Mammatus had been damaged enough that they were currently grounded. To be honest, from Cabbie's perspective it was a minor miracle that Mammatus had made it back to the landing strip with as bad as his right engine had been.

Everyone had managed to stay civil until they were all on the ground, though Cabbie suspected that had been driven by the shear amount of focus required to get their damaged fellows home verses any military discipline bleeding through. Once everyone was out of harm's way, the shouting match had started almost immediately.

"…and you really think that you could do this any better!" Goose's flaps where out as he tried to shout down the highest ranking officer from the other flight.

"And what if I do!" Alto hissed back.

The only two planes that seemed to stay completely clear of the brewing politics were Nimbus, their soft spoken weather plane, and Short, the flight's Clinker…and even they were starting to look uncomfortable from where they stared at the sidelines. Out of the corner of his eye Cabbie could see the pair of planes slowly trying to back away from the argument. When the young navigator spotted what his fellows were looking at, he decided that it was probably a good time to join them. Cabbie slowly and carefully detached himself from the cluster of arguing C-119's until he was even with the two neutral planes.

"Well, that escalated fast." Cabbie muttered, as he relaxed a little bit knowing that he had removed himself from the chaos before the commanding officers showed up.

"You're telling me." Short stared, wide eyed at the knot of pissed off planes.

"Do you think they have noticed how much attention they are drawing to themselves?" Nimbus asked a certain level of amusement in his voice as he stared at the circus in front of him.

"The fact at we have a Major headed our way and they are still yelling their brains out, I highly doubt it." Cabbie discreetly indicated with his wingtip towards a C-47 that was bearing down on them.

The three planes quickly lapped into silence, bracing themselves at attention in a vain hope that maybe the commanding officer would be lenient with them. With as badly as C-47's wings were quivering, it was pretty clear that rest of the special flying unit was pretty much doomed. The lecture that ensued was one of the most impressive that any of the C-119's had ever hear. It even left the tongue lashing that they had received back in basic training far in the dust.

Once the C-47 didn't look like he was physically preventing his flaps from brisling, and the major's voice was no longer echoing in the C-119s' ears, then the planes got really worried for their safety. This was because the officer commented that if the C-119s had enough time to get in these types of arguments, they were clearly not being kept busy enough. Then with a wicked grin, the C-47 informed the lot of them that he was going to personally find some ways for the cargo planes to stay out of trouble. While Cabbie didn't know for sure what the C-47 had in store for them, he was pretty sure it wasn't going to be pretty.

* * *

It didn't take the group long to realize that the plane that they had managed to royally piss off was the Wing King. As the highest ranked aircraft on the airfield and the plane in charge of all the flight operations, Major Timbertoes Thomason had a whole lot of power to make the C-119s lives completely miserable. It was power that the older plane seemed to apply with relish.

At O-Dark Thirty the 10 forward C-119s would be roused in order to perform the FOD Walk, the patrol of the flight line to pick up any loss debris. While this duty wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing if they had been a bit smaller planes, but the C-119s' immense wingspans made the whole process into a painful exercise in patience.

They were expected to fly all of their regular missions delivering supplies to the ever moving frontline, but the moment their tires were back on the ground the Major had a laundry list of tasks for them to complete. The planes were kept busy practically every minute of the day. The only moments of rest bits that they gotwas when they were fueling, were being loaded with cargo, or had been pulled aside by the mechanics in order to patch up their war damage. After one day of the gruelingpace they were the entire special flying unit were practically flying dead on their wings, and they didn't even have the energy to complain about it.

* * *

By the end of two weeks trapped under Timbertoes command, the team ended up hating the C-47 far more than they had ever disliked each other. As a result the flight bonded in little ways that they never could have under the constant hail of bullets they experience during their cargo dumps. But just because they were becoming a functionally team, didn't mean that they weren't relieved to be heading back to Japan for some R and R. The transit flight was quiet…almost too quiet.

" _Is it just me, or is the ship chatter way down today?"_  Nimbus's voice crackled. In the long pause it appeared that everyone was straining to listen to the radio traffic. Cabbie knew that his navigation systems gave him the widest radio range in the group, so he focused his attention to the frequencies on the low end of the spectrum. He locked in to a conversation between one of the carriers and her destroyer escort and was trying to figure out exactly what he was saying.

" _Cabbie, your opinion?"_ Goose asked.

"What?" The navigator stammered, blinking his focus back to the formation.

" _Cabbie."_  Goose voice was level, but it was clear that the navigator was spooking him a little.  _"What is going on with the fleet?"_

"I will tell you when we get on the ground." Cabbie sighed, not knowing exactly what else to say.

Several of the planes were giving him a look, but Goose didn't argue.  _"Alright, I will look forward to hearing your report then."_

* * *

No sooner had all the tires gotten stopped on the tarmac when, Cabbie found himself ambushed by the entire special flight group.

"So what is going on?" Alto pushed, clearly curious.

"The navy got tied up with a major military action yesterday." Cabbie started, trying to figure how much he could say without comprising operational security. He finally figured that if the carriers were chatting about it on the ship to ship channel he was probably safe to share it with his fellow C-119s. "The Pirate, the demining operation's flag ship, apparently capsized and went down in under five minutes. A second ship, the Pledge, was also lost. They are not sure if she was killed by enemy fire or from damage from a mine, or a combination of both. Apparent she was heavily damaged by both, but managed to flounder for a good 45 minutes before succumbing to her injuries which allowed all of her surviving crew to get to the lifeboats. Right now the USS Redhead is floundering, and they are not sure if her injuries are survivable…"

"Well, they knew what their nation asked of them." Goose broke the uncomfortable silence. Though his words could be seen as callus, everyone in the hanger knew it was a quiet statement of respect. Warships, like cargoplanes were responsible to put the lives of their crews first and the greatest sacrifices that their kind couldmake, was to prolong their own suffering at a time of death to insure that their crew had the best chance of survival possible. "Just like we know what our nation asks of everyone, there is a major cargo mission on the horizon and the Air Force is going to need every plane in ship shape to make it happen. Get a good night sleep tonight and get a tune up done tomorrow because I don't think you are going to get much of a chance to relax after that."

* * *

When Goose said that they had a big mission ahead of them, he hadn't been lying. All 71 C-119s that were in theater were being pulled in to participate in the air drop and the planners involved another 40 C-47s to fly alongside them. While most planes knew that their job was to move the entire 187th Airborne Regimental Combat Team to a drop site 30 miles north of Pyongyang, some of the aircraft in command knew that one of their jobs was to cut off the North Korean retreat so that the ground forces could successfully rescue a bunch of American and South Korean POWs.

Cabbie technically wasn't high enough on the chain of command to be privy to all the details, but most command planes were known to look the other way when keeping their navigator in the loop. It tended to help insure that they dropped their load in the correct location.

Orders were pretty much divided up by aircraft names. Flights whose members had names relating to aviation and cargo terms were slotted towards the front of the formation, while those that were named after weather or astronomical terms were held towards the back. Planes with other naming schemes were tossed in the middle…

* * *

"Wait." One of the cars from legal interrupted the flow of the story. "How come all the planes in a particular flight have such similar names?"

"Because they were given 'nicknames' during basic training, and they stuck hard enough that is what their entire squadron called them by the time they got to Korea."

"So if I looked you your yearbook I wouldn't find the name Cabbie." Blade smirked into his coffee cup.

"No," the old plane chuckled, "I wasn't born with the name Cabbie. Like most military planes I it once I made it through basic training. I ended up legally changing my registration when I got back toUS after the Korean War. After the war, Cabbie just fit and it wasn't like my family was going to take me back. Now if there are no more questions, I think it is time to get back to the story."

* * *

The weather couldn't have chosen a worse time to turn foul, but on October 20th it chose to anyway. At every American occupied air field in Korea and a good chunk of the ones in Japan Cargo planes sat prepared. Cabbie and the ten other planes in his formation had been sent to Korea the night before so that they would be ready to take off a dawn but stormy weather had left them trapped on the ground. The situation was only made worse by the fact that the aircraft could have technically taken off and gotten over the target, they just couldn't drop the paratroopers until the wind died down a bit.

With nothing else to do the C-119s hovered on the runway, their passengers holed up in one of the hangers praying that weather would break. The tension in the air practically hummed, but no one wanted to talk. They just wanted to get to work and get their first personal drop done.

Then the call came and the world sprang from slow motion to fast forward. It only took less than 15 minutes to get the aircraft loaded. Within 20 the flight was on the end of the runway requesting clear for takeoff. It was given and all the 10 planes in Cabble's flight unit were the first to take to the air…it wasn't enough. Even as Cabbie dropped his paratroopers, it was clear that they had gotten their too late. The POW that they had been set to rescue were nothing but burned out hulks that were visible from the sky.

* * *

Finding out that the North Koreans had killed the POWs during their retreat northward really hammered moral, but none of the C-119s really had time to focus on it. They were scheduled to make at least one more drop that day and the late start had thrown their original time table out the window.

" _I sure hope that none of us ever end up like that."_  Bus was the plane who finally broke the flights moody silence.

" _Don't worry. The chance of any of us ever becoming a POW is slim to none."_  Feather said after a contemplative pause.

" _Why's that?"_

" _It is pretty simple."_  Goose remarked.  _"If we get hit by enough fire power to knock us out of the sky, do you really think that any of us would survive impact?"_

" _Well that a cheery thought."_  Stratus snorted in reply.

" _What did you expect?"_  Alto didn't try to hide his amusement.  _"For the lead plane to blow roses up you aft."_

" _I_ …" Stratus started.

"Guys, do you mind if we put in sterile cockpit procedures in place?" Cabbie interrupted the banter. "Cause, we are about to come up on the drop zone and I would rather not make a mistake and accidently give the enemy a couple of our howitzers."

 _"Sounds like a good plan. You all heard the navigator. Button up until after the drop."_  Goose ordered and the C-119s quieted in preparation to make the drop.

* * *

"We C-119s flew from dawn to dusk for the next couple of days. By day four of the operation all the C-119s were feeling like they had really figured out how to do combat cargo. On October 25th, we ended up moving 1,767 tons equipment, which was the record for airdrops in a combat zone. It was an impressive enough feat that even the ground pounders admitted that we cargo planes played a key role in the Battle of the Apple Grove." Cabbie practically puffed with the pride of the memory. "The North Koreans had been beaten back and our fighter planes were allowed to chase them all of the way to the Chinese border. We were hopeful that the war would be done by Christmas…which only proved just how naive we really were. But it is getting late, so that part of the story will have to wait for tomorrow."


	6. The Frozen Chosin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The tide of battle had turned, and not in the American's favor. Now the C-119's are called upon to make one of the most daring rescues of the war.

It was 2 am…and once again Cabbie found sleep evading him. He knew why. He was going to have to speak about one of the most painful chapters of the Korean War. Unfortunately, it was also one of the only parts of the war that people remember existed and usually the only time where C119's were talked about in a positive manner. (Cabbie had pretty much gotten used to his kind being referred to as the lemon's of the aircraft world, though the negative reputation kind of stung.)

He stared at the wall for what seemed like a small eternity, then at 2:40 Cabbie rolled out on the tarmac to watch the stars.

* * *

Cabbie awoke again, an undetermined time later with a grumpy looking tug parked at his nose.

"So do you I need to get concerned about your sleeping habits?"

Cabbie just shrugged his wings. "Doesn't matter to me either way."

"Planes." Maru replied with mock disgust and an exaggerated eye roll. Then the tug got down to business. "You want breakfast?"

At the suggestion of fuel the cargo plane's tanks rumble. Maru laughed at that and headed towards fuel depot. Cabbie wasn't too far behind.

* * *

The rest of the morning was pretty uneventful. Maru and Cabbie did chores around the base while they waited for Blade to finally work up enough energy to grace them with his presence. Once the Chief had warmed up and had his antifreeze shower, the crew was ready to go.

The situation at the lodge was also eerily familiar, as well. The number of vehicles that were showing up to Cabbie's storytelling sessions had stabilized. The C-119 suspected that was driven by the fact that there was simply no more room to put vehicles in the Incident Command room rather than an accurate number of the cars that wanted to be in attendance.

The group had been happily chattering away when Cabbie entered, but the quickly quieted as soon as the C-119 reached the front of the room. All eyes turned on the cargo plane. He took a deep breath and then began.

"Our troops were taken completely off guard when the Chinese entered the War. We went from being days away from forcing the North Koreans to surrender to struggling to keep our army from being captured by the enemy, because we all knew that surrender to the enemy was just a delaying tactic for death. A death that stalked us every single day…"

* * *

An icy wind screamed across the tarmac, and none of the C-119's lined up on the apron could keep themselves from shivering. That said, they somehow resisted the urge huddle together for shelter even as the temperatures dropped dangerously low. There was no sense giving the enemy a larger target than absolutely necessary.

As the sun slipped behind the horizons, the crew chiefs helped their planes start up their engines in an attempt to keep the oil from solidifying inside of their delicate mechanisms and killing the aircraft. The fuel intake required to keep their pistons running through the night was enormous, but the higher ups considered it to be a small price to pay. There had already lost a handful of aircraft that had frozen to death in the harsh Korean winter and they simply didn't have cargo planes to lose.

The wear of having your engines running for hours at a time was exhausting for everyone involved with the air crews, but especially the aircraft. Sleeping during the long hours of darkness was practically impossible, and aircraft like Cabbie soon discovered that it was almost preferable to volunteer for night flying missions. Because if they were out all night, they probably would get at least an hour or two on uninterrupted sleep basking in the weak winter's sun.

Unfortunately, the aircraft didn't always get the sleep that they were due.

"Wake up; it is time to get moving."

Cabbie awoke to Sandy gently swatting his nose. It took a few moments, but eventually, the cargo plane was able to blink most of the sleep from his eyes. Yawning he tried to get his bearings. "What is today's mission?"

"Don't know yet, just supposed to get you ready for a briefing." Sandy shrugged, while giving Cabbie a quart of oil. The young plane glanced around him as he drank and noticed that everyone was also being woken up.

* * *

The all hand's meeting was held on the tarmac, because it was the only space that could handle the cargo plane's size. Cabbie felt odd being surrounded by so many vehicles, but everyone was being so quiet that no one had trouble hearing the briefing. And man, this briefing was a dozey.

"As I am sure that most of you have already heard, the Chinese have joined the fight. The reds are currently pouring over the Northern border of Korea and our men are barely managing to keep ahead of the advancing forces. The retreating men are currently running low on food, fuel, and ammunition, and if we can't get them more supplies north we will probably lose an entire army." The jeep giving the briefing paused for a long moment, allowing information to sink in before beginning again. "Here is what we are going to do about it. We are going to be daisy chaining supplies all the way up from Japan. So, if you are part of the cargo transport teams don't be surprised if you get shifted to help fill gaps in the supply line." There was a slight murmur from the crowd, which was quickly silenced with a look. "If you are part of the medical teams, be prepare for an influx of injured. You are going to be patching vehicles up fast as you can, and send them out on south bound aircraft. Lastly, if you are non-essential personal, get your gear packed up. You are moving out." The jeep gave a good look at the population of K-27 Air Field. "Squadron leaders will remain for an additional briefing. The rest of you are dismissed."

No one had to be told twice. They scattered. Smaller vehicles either went back to work or, if they were technically off duty, went to make sure their foot lockers were in order. The planes went back to their spot on the apron.

"So, how you think this order will affect us?" Short finally spoke up once all the C-119's were settled.

"Not much." Cabbie yawned. "Unless they move us down the daisy chain we will continue flying over the frontlines dumping supplies out our afts. Now, I don't know about you guys but I flew mission all last night, so I am going back to sleep."

There were some murmurs of agreement as Cabbie settled lower on his tires. The other planes may have continued the conversation, but the navigator would never know because he was out like a light.

* * *

The Marines were holding at the moment, allowing for other UN Forces to escape southward, but it was only a matter of time before the Chinese would be able to encircle them. By week two of the evacuation, the decision was made to evacuate most of the larger planes from the forward airstrips. Too many of them were getting stuck in the half frozen mud, and with the enemy rapidly advancing on them, the command feared that they wouldn't have time to pull out a stuck plane when the line moved.

But, in war there is always an exception to the rule. At this moment it eight C-119 were being prepared to complete one of the most daring supply drops of the war. Unfortunately, things were not going nearly as well as they would have liked.

Goose, Short, Stratus, Alto, Duce, Feather, and Cabbie were all looking the crumpled mess that was supposed to be a bridge section. None of the planes knew exactly what had gone wrong…but tangled parachutes probably contributed to the air field's newest crater. Bus, the plane that had drawn the short straw for this particular test circled above them. Clearly also trying to get a look at his handy work.

" _So, did the drop work?"_  Bus asked anxiously on the radio.

After a pregnant pause, Alto said what everyone had been thinking. "Well, it could have gone better."

* * *

The riggers worked through the night, and everyone prayed that with the new configuration the parachutes would open correctly as there was no time to test it. Meanwhile, the eight planes tried to sleep. Everyone was nervous, because they all knew that they would only get one shot for this. The Chinese had backed the Marines with their back against the river. If the bridge delivery plan failed, the there was a good chance that the entire X-Corp would be lost.

In the gray morning, the flight rolled out onto the tarmac and loaded up with their precious cargo. As the load teams secured the bridge sections, the aircraft at just enough time for a last minute pep-talk.

"Cabbie and Bus, you will be with me." Feather looked over his crew. "If it succeeds then the rest of you will take off from K-27 and drop your load on the south side of the bridge. Understood?" There was a murmur of affirmative from the gathered planes. "Okay, Boys lets lock and load!"

Minutes later, the quiet morning was shattered by the sound of the thunder of the C-119's massive piston engines, as the first wave of cargo planes took to the sky.

* * *

As the team's navigator, Cabbie took point on this mission. Feather was off his right wing, while Bus sat off his left. The planes flew northeast towards the trapped units. As they got closer and closer to the front lines the cargo planes couldn't help but be a bit nervous. The airspace over the battle had been crowded the last few days with a combination of Corsairs and Panthers strafing the enemy, forward observation aircraft mapping out the terrain, and cargo planes delivering badly needed supplies. Today the sky was cleared in order to give the C-119's dropping the bridge as much space as possible to maneuver…unfortunately that also meant cargo planes had nothing to protect them from ground fire.

" _So do you think that we can really pull this off?"_ Bus asked as he eyed the enemy positions directly in front of them.

" _I think if anyone can manage it, we can._ " Feather admitted honestly.

Then there was no more time to talk. Cabbie led the planes up a rocky canyon and dumped his load just outside the Marine's position. Feather and Bus followed soon after delivering their loads. The navigator banked hard and circled back over the landing site to confirm the safe delivery of the badly needed bridge segments. It looked like all of them had landed intact, Cabbie was about to relay the good news when his luck ran out.

One of the bullets that had been whistling past him connected with a sickening ping on one of his tails. For a plane had gotten used to bullets strafing his belly, this particular wound caused him to experience a completely different level of pain. Cabbie tried to swallow down his panic as he adjusted all of the flight surfaces in his tail and relaxed a little when he realized that all of them were working. Even though it felt like the bullet that had hit him had gone clean through one of his tails,

" _Cabbie, you okay?"_  Feather's clipped voice caused forced the wounded plane back into the moment.

" _Got hit, but I don't think it is too bad."_ Cabbie breathed as he shakily circled back up to the formation taking up a station off Bus's wing.

There was a long pause and then Bus asked the question that was on the forefront of everyone's mind.  _"Well, did the bridge pieces make it?"_

" _That would be an affirmative."_  Everyone could practically hear Cabbie grin over the radio.  _"It looks like all the parachutes deployed correctly. The ground pounders were already dragging the pieces back to camp when I flew over."_

" _That is the best news that I have heard in weeks."_ As they flew south Feather let the rest of the C-119's in their convoy know it was safe to drop their loads.

When they returned to base it was determined that some red soldier had put a bullet hole clean through Cabbie's tail. While it hurt like slag the young plane couldn't help but be proud of his latest battle wound. He practically showed it off to the other planes in his unit, until Sandy forced him to get it welded shut. Afterall no plane could afford to have a wound open for too long in poor weather, especially when it was clear that relief wasn't going to be coming any time soon.

* * *

"How did you do that?" A green hatchback, one of the interpretive rangers asked shattering the moment.

"How did I do what?" Cabbie countered without a single ounce of pressure in his voice.

"How could you manage to fly into danger like that, even when you knew that you were just going to be shot up for your troubles?" The ranger asked wide-eyed, and the warplane almost had to bite back a chuckle.

"Because, I was a soldier, and a soldier doesn't leave their fellows behind." Cabbie said with gravity, then be broke into a worn smile. "Plus, if you are pretty sure that you are going to die anyway, it becomes easy to become pretty fearless."

"It really wasn't that bleak…" Maru started, but one look at the warplanes expression made the mechanic instantly back peddle. "Was it?"

"At the point of the war, yes. Yes, it was. It was only about a week later, on December 17th, that we were forced to abandon the K-27 Air Field to the communist." Cabbie sunk lower on his tires as he thought about that dark day. "By that point pretty much all of the C-119's had already been moved farther south, but the eight of us who had made the bridge drop were some of the last planes out. In the end, the evacuation of K-27 was a mad scramble to try to get as many casualties out of harm's way and keep as much of cargo out of the enemies hands as possible."

* * *

Cabbie's clamshell doors had been put back on, which was a weird sensation. He had kind of gotten use to having his entire backside open to the elements so that they could dump cargo out the hatch. Today, though, he wasn't heading to the front lines. The front lines had caught up to him and his team, and it was time to tuck their tails and flee south.

The Marines that may say that they were simply advancing in another direction, but every plane knew what this was. It was a retreat. They were fleeing before the enemy, and they were giving up the airfield that had, in a few short weeks, become a sort of home.

The navigator was the second plane of the eight C-119's to take to the air. As Cabbie banked left, he caught his last glimpse of K-27. He had no way of knowing that he would be one of the last allied planes to ever fly from that airstrip. Within two weeks, enemy 'Annies' would be moved there to take up permit station and K-27 would officially be renamed Yonpo.

* * *

Depression was starting to settle in the ranks. Everyone, from the smallest tug to the largest naval vessel knew that the tide of war was not flowing in their direction. The dark, cold days and the punishing storms of winter only served to drive home the feeling that the American soldiers had been truly sent to a God forsaken place.

While everyone was struggling with the situation, the planes were having a particularly hard time adapting to the situation. They were sleeping out in the open because the hangers were being targeted by the enemy. They were covered with a thickening layer of mud and ice which added to their weight and made it more difficult to climb into the sky. Then there was the fact that every aircraft which operated close to the front lines had taken some form of battle damage…and most of those dents and dings were still untreated.

Still, as the winter holiday's approached the hardest duty on the planes was mail call. Hundreds of letters and packages for the troops were being sent from the United States, and the cargo planes were constantly being tasked with making sure that the mail bags made it to the front lines before Christmas. For Cabbie it was a job that was only made more grating by the knowledge that none one was going to send him a holiday package.

"You get anything?" Cabbie asked his flight mate during one of the lolls in the transport schedule.

"You know it is." Bus shrugged. "Once you are fully fledged you are kind of on your own."

Cabbie knew exactly what Bus was talking about. Raising a large plane was incredibly expensive, and as a result, aircraft tended to have unstable home lives. A number of C-119's in their unit had grown up in orphanages after being abandoned. Both Cabbie and Bus had been lucky. Their parents had taken care of them until they had fully fledged, but now that they were adults they would remain alone until they mated for life.

The lack of familial support meant that none of the air cargo planes were going to get letters or packages from home. The only thing that Cabbie and his flight mates really had to look forward to was a possible gap in the fighting. They watched the calendar for the holiday to finally arrive, and a quiet day where they wouldn't be shot at…but a Christmas truces never came. Apparently, Christmas truces were only for wars and not for police actions, so the planes spent the day getting shot at on the frontlines.

* * *

"…and that is how I spent my first Christmas on the Korean Pinnacle. We C-119's would continue to fly missions to support the evacuation of UN forces through March, but none would be no push would be as extreme as what we did at Chosin Reservoir." Cabbie let his words hang, in the room for a few long seconds before slipping out the door.


End file.
